This Is Getting Nuts

     Being quite passionate about food and cooking, I keep an on-going culinary bucket list. An item that's been on my list is making acorn flour. As someone who is in the woods often and that also has many oak trees on my property, I come across many acorns, but it still took a couple of years to finally get serious and collect said nuts and get busy. And that my friends was an understatement! Collecting enough for a usable amount of flour, sorting through them and removing any that had been penetrated by weevils or just not edible quality took some time, as did shelling, drying & grinding. Although shelling was the most time consuming, the final step of grinding was the one I found most difficult because I couldn't find the tool for the job. The nutmeats were so hard when I finished drying them that I was afraid to put them in my food processor, electric coffee grinder or blender for fear of damaging them. I finally settled on an antique-style coffee mill powered by elbow grease. Yikes, what a workout just to get enough for one batch of pasta dough. And that's only using 25-30% acorn flour with the remaining being all purpose flour.

    Now I am not anywhere close to being an authority on this subject as this was my first and possibly only time doing this so I won't go to deeply into the process, but I will say however that there are numerous methods of  rendering flour or meal from acorns and it is quite possible that the method I chose resulted in my difficult outcome. One of the issues that must be dealt with is removing the tannins that are a part of most acorns. The two ways I came across of doing this are cold-water & hot-water leaching. I chose hot-water which produced a darker finished flour. I also dried them in a dehydrator that rendered the nuts very hard contributing I believe to my grinding issues.

    Once I had enough ground flour I was able to concoct a recipe of dough and make a batch of ravioli  filled with the one ingredient that cried out for this marriage...Squirrel of course!  Oh, I know what you must be thinking, I've heard it all, they're dirty, they're cute, that's gross...tree rats! Guess what.............    they taste great. Yes, they're small and don't have the meat yield of larger game animals but of all the small game I've hunted including quail, pheasant, rabbit & woodcock, I would choose squirrel every time on the basis of taste, texture & availability. Now the neighborhood I live in they run rampant, and I could certainly keep myself well supplied quite easily but that's not my jam and it would undoubtedly land me in the doghouse with my sweetie even though they are utterly destructive little buggers. 

No, it's being out in the woods, enjoying nature, watching the sun come up & go down. Observing wildlife do what wildlife does and if I do everything right and with some luck added in, I might just bring home some wonderful, local food, harvested ethically.

    I'm usually fairly successful every season bagging enough for me to make a few dishes that will satisfy me. I've done stew, both in cast iron on the stove top & in the slow-cooker, fried and southern-style stew with dumplings which is my personal favorite done with rolled out dumplings, somewhere between pasta & pie dough, this stuff is simple to make and absolutely amazing! Possible future video/blogpost for sure. But this time I had my sights set on doing something a bit different, a recipe that would include multiple items acquired from a very close geographical proximity and have them unite in a palette pleasing way. My original thought was to do a squirrel ravioli that had foraged, wild mushrooms combined with the squirrel meat and filled into a a pasta dough made with acorn flour and served with a roasted acorn squash cream sauce. well as much as I searched, acorn squash was nowhere to be found. Butternut however was and although not as whimsical sounding, fantastic tasting just the same. 

    The final recipe is "Squirrel and Acorn Ravioli with Roasted Butternut Cream". I was quite pleased with the end result. The pasta was not tough, just firm from the hardness of the acorn flour and similar I think to a hard winter wheat flour and certainly not a problem for me.  Of course this would work just fine with shredded, cooked chicken(preferably dark meat), another mushroom of your choice, purchased ricotta and plain egg pasta either homemade or sheets from the market. Still fun, just not as much...hee hee.     

Squirrel and Acorn Ravioli with Roasted Butternut Squash Cream

Filling:

1 Cup cooked & shredded squirrel meat(chicken or pork would work fine)

3/8 Cup Ricotta cheese

1 Tablespoon Parmesan cheese-grated

1/4 Cup cooked Chicken of the Woods mushrooms(Cremini or white would be fine)

1 teaspoon Porcini powder Salt & pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in bowl and set aside

Roasted Butternut Squash Cream:

1 Butternut squash.

2 Tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. garlic powder & 1 tsp. smoked paprika

1Cup Chicken stock or bullion mixed with water

1/2 Cup Heavy cream

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Salt & pepper to taste

Peel, seed & cube squash. Toss in a bowl with oil and seasonings. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in 400 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.

Pasta dough:

1-1/2 cups All purpose flour

1/2 cup Acorn flour

2 whole eggs and 3 yolks

1/2 Tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

Place flour in mound on counter or in bowl, make well in center. Into the well add eggs, oil & salt. mix with fingers or fork in circular motion until all flour is incorporated into wet ingredients. Work into a nice smooth, homogenized dough ball. Flatten slightly into a disk, wrap in plastic & rest for at least 30 minutes in fridge. Dough can be rolled by hand on a lightly floured surface or in pasta machine. It needs to be rolled as thin as you can get it without tearing apart . I use an Atlas machine and roll it to setting "5" as it started to tear at "6".

Assembly:

If rolling out by hand you'll have to get it to at least 1/16” or less or pasta will be too tough. On floured surface, roll half of dough, then spoon or scoop about 2-3 tablespoons on dough about 3” apart, this size batch gets me about 12 raviolis. Brush dough all around filling. Roll remaining pasta into the same size & shape, Lay on top of filling and bottom sheet . Using cupped hands, carefully press around each filling ball to make sure there is a good seal, then using a crimped pasta cutter, pizza wheel or knife to cut out raviolis into whatever shape desired. If not cooking now, place on parchment lined tray, cover with plastic & store in fridge for up to 1-2 days, freeze for longer than that. Cook in salted, boiling water for 3-5 minutes depending on how thick dough was rolled and the size of raviolis. Will take a few minutes more if frozen. Serve with heated butternut cream. I like to garnish mine with grated Parmesan, chopped chives or parsley and a drizzle of truffle oil if I have any on hand. Enjoy! 

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Wild Turkey Enchiladas on the Blackstone griddle

     I have been hunting as well as trying to figure out the wild turkey, more specifically the tom turkey for nineteen springs. I'm not sure what fascinates me the most about this bird. Yes it has incredible eye sight, it's wonderful tasting and although not the best flyer, he can bust from the ground, take to the sky, avoid being shot and be gone from sight before you can blink and do a double-take. But I think what gets me most is his ability to change the plays in the middle of the game without rhyme or reason, meaning that just when I think I have figured out what his next move is gonna be and believe I've got the bead on him(literally), he blindsides me and does the exact opposite. That makes the game interesting, but it also keeps my success rate to one turkey every two to three seasons. It does not however deter me, it only brings me back to the woods each spring with all the enthusiasm of the previous year and more.

    This past season happened to be one that did not produce meat for the table or freezer. Just when I thought I knew where they were going to be at sunrise, because that's where they've been the last three mornings...surprise, I'm there and ready but those sneaky birds just went and flipped the switch turned up where I had been on the previous mornings and managed to elude me this year. Luckily I had one last package of frozen breast meat from last season and I wanted to try a new preparation. My go to dish for wild turkey breast is "Schnitzel" style, lightly pounded & breaded with panko or your favorite crumb then pan-fried. When this dish is cooked properly and not over-cooked it's superb eating. But this time I'm going to do Enchiladas. I normally make them with chicken or seafood but I figured that the turkey would be an excellent substitution. I also wanted to use my Blackstone griddle to prepare the filling and then bake them in a cast iron pan over wood coals in my fire pit. I planned on charring some peppers & scallions for the dish over fire and also grill-sear the breast meat, so I would already have the hot coals to bake the enchiladas with. 

                                                           

  

                      

    Cooking on the Blackstone is a blast, it's like having a giant sauté pan to cook just about anything you want. I've done, smashed burgers, fried rice, cheesesteaks, breakfast and more with fantastic results. The enchiladas were no different, the key is to have all your ingredients and tools ready and close by so that when the griddle is hot you don't have to run around searching for items you need for the recipe. it also cleans up easily. I just make sure to give it a good coat of oil when finished, like I do with cast iron to minimize rust since it is steel and is kept outside. 

    After making the filling and removing it to a bowl I toasted the corn tortillas on the griddle, filled & rolled them then placed them into a 10" cast iron pan. I then wrapped the lid with foil so that I could put coals on top for a true oven style cook. probably didn't need to do this but since the lid was thin aluminum I did not want to discolor or warp it.  

I'm inserting my recipe for this dish below. Feel free to use 

any protein of your choice or make it plant-based if you like,

it will be fantastic I'm sure. 

Wild Turkey Enchiladas

l Ib. Boneless wild turkey breast ( or chicken)

1 tsp. Coriander, 1tsp. Cumin, 1tsp. smoked paprika, 1tsp. kosher salt &

1/2 tsp. black pepper

2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. butter or bacon fat

1 med onion- diced & 1 bunch scallions-roasted, (green part for garnish)

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

1 C. diced tomatoes

1 C. canned green chiles-preferably roasted hatch

1-Yz C. enchilada sauce-homemade or canned

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 to 1 C. cilantro

1 -1-112 C. shredded taco cheese blend( cheddar, Monterrey jack)

Flour or corn tortillas( this will fill about 6-7 flour & 8-1 0 corn)

• Season breast with spice blend & heat heavy sauté pan over med heat, when oil is

hot place breast in pan & cook for 3-5 min. turn and do the same for other side.

Pan may be covered to ensure meat is cooked through but don't over cook or it

will be tough. Remove & set aside.

• Add butter or fat to pan. When heated add onions & garlic & cook for a few min.

till they are soft, add tomatoes & cook for another 5-6 min. til they start to break

down.

• While veggies are cooking dice or shred turkey meat into bite-size pieces.

• Add chilies to pan , turkey meat & simmer for a minute or two, add cilantro, lime

juice & roast scallion whites, mix in and remove from heat to cool.

• Place 1/4 C. of filling in the center of a corn tortilla, close to a 1/2 C. for flour,

sprinkle w/ 1/4C. cheese & roll up snugly & place into a 9"X13" greased &

sauced baking dish & continue til the dish is full(about 6 flour or 8 corn)

• Top each w/ couple Tbsp. enchilada sauce & some cheese. Bake in 350 degree

oven til heated through & cheese is melted, about 20-30 min.

• Garnish w/ green scallions & serve w/ rice, beans, sour cream & guacamole

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Black And Blue Jam Session

     When I was a teenager my family moved to South Jersey. One of the houses under consideration was located in Hammonton and directly across from a blueberry farm. At thirteen I wasn't aware at the time that Hammonton was the mecca of the blueberry world nor did I probably care and as fate would have it my folks choose another home about 20 miles away. Little did I know then that this fabulous tiny blue fruit would play many a culinary role for me for decades to come.

    A few years later I was in my photography period and worked occasionally for guy who was a journalist for a regional newspaper and sidelined as a youth sports team photographer. He had many interests and philosophies and had a great way of getting me to look at things through a different set of glasses which has proven helpful over the years. One of his passions was blueberries. I remember reading a newspaper article he wrote about the different varieties of local blueberries and what farms were growing them. We even went on a few foraging excursions either to pick at farms or the woods of the pine barrens. Now I had always been a fan of traditional baked blueberry pie but he turned me on to a new version called raw or fresh-berry pie and I have made this pie more than any other over the years.

In fact I had one of my early cooking catastrophes making it. It was the first time preparing it and the recipe calls for making a berry flavored glaze thickened with cornstarch. Well when I went to add the starch to the boiling blueberries I inadvertently grabbed baking soda instead. The result was an instantaneous explosion of molten berry sauce, thankfully that only happened once! For anybody interested in this wonderfully quick & easy pie I will put the recipe at the end of this post.

    It's now mid July, the time when I get out into the field to gather not only blueberries but blackberries as well. The wild blueberries seem to become ripe after the commercial fields have just about finished up their season. I've picked the blues for over 30 years & the blacks for about 10. A brush fire took out the blackberry canes two years ago and they started to grow back last year without fruit and this summer I watched as red, unripe berries started to appear a few weeks back. The blueberries have been very sparse the last few years and I didn't get any last season. So I got out last weekend and managed to get 4-6 cups of both varieties, not quite enough to make the fresh-berry pie as it requires a good amount to make the glaze & fill the shell with fruit. I will however have enough when I add raspberries & strawberries to make my Mixed Berry ginger Jam.                                                              

 I've been making this almost every season and we just finished the final jar from my last batch so this is the main reason for this picking session. My recipe calls for 12-14 Cups of berries and this yields 12-14 half pints to be canned for shelf storage which is plenty of jam for a year.

      

Mixed Berry Ginger Jam

14 Cups Berries(I use 4 black, 4 blue, 4 strawberry & 2 raspberry)

1 Tablespoon fresh ginger- minced

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

9 Cups sugar

1/2 Cup lemon juice

5.25 oz. pectin( 3- 1.75 oz. boxes)

Crush all berries with potato masher and set aside

Put about 1/2 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup water, ginger & cardamom in large, non-reactive pot and simmer for a few minutes to bring out flavors.

Add berries, 6-1/2 cups sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and cook for 10-15 minutes and berries are cooked down.

Lower heat and add the remaining 2 cups of sugar which the pectin has been added. Mix well into berries to avoid lumps. Bring back to a boil for 1 minute.

Ladle into sterilized jars and process in boiling water for 15 minutes for shelf storage or cool and keep refrigerated.

This recipe will make about 12-14 half pints. 

...and as promised

Fresh Berry Pie

2 pints blueberries(might not use all of them)

1 pie crust- blind-baked(lined with pie weights, beans or whatever you use and baked @350 for 10-12 minutes til just starting to get golden.

4-6 oz. cream cheese-softened to room temp.

1 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

water

Glaze:

Bring 1 cup berries & 2/3 cup water to a boil and simmer for 5-8 minutes until the berries start to break down. While berries are cooking, mix well, 1 cup sugar, cornstarch & 1/3 cup water in a bowl. When berries are ready stir in starch/sugar mixture, bring back to boil for 1 minute. Take off heat and cool to room temp.

Pie:

Spread cream cheese in an even layer on the pie crust. Fill crust with berries, this will take about 2 cups depending on crust size(I generally use 9"). Pour glaze over berries & carefully mix it to distribute throughout  the berries.

Chill in the fridge over night and serve with whipped cream & enjoy!

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A New Twist To A Familiar Dish

    I first started cooking in my early 20's just after being married and aside from occasionally making myself some lunch in my school years, this new meal preparation was not only for me but for my new bride as well. Now I wasn't the only one cooking, she did her fair share in the beginning but had absolutely no for love for it. As for me, I definitely liked to try new recipes & techniques even though I surely didn't know what I was doing and clearly had know idea at the time the passion it would grow into.

    One of the first dishes I made that we both enjoyed came from a recipe on the side of a pasta box. You could hardly call it cooking, boiling pasta and sautéing diced bacon. And I'm sure the word sauté was not even in my vocabulary at that time. Anyway this wonderfully tasty dish is Pasta Carbonara, smoky, salty(in a good way), creamy & rich. Other than the bacon and pasta, all you had to do was get butter, eggs & parmesan cheese to room temperature and toss it all together with the hot pasta, which cooks the eggs and thickens the sauce. just season with some freshly cracked black pepper & chopped parsley and you have yourself one fantastic, easy meal.

    As fate would have it I ended up getting a culinary education and working in restaurant kitchens & over the years tried to use this knowledge and try to make this dish better. I tried a reduction sauce, a cream and egg liaison and other methods that in the end only made it more complicated to prepare but in no way any better, usually worse. So now I am back full circle to the early years of good tasting simplicity and I am certainly fine with that.

    I was recently trying to use up some items in my freezer to make room for the upcoming and hopefully successful fishing & hunting seasons. One of the vaccu-sealed bags contained a nice Rainbow Trout that I caught last winter. Now trout isn't one of my favorite fish to eat but I do enjoy it smoked as well as the smoking process. Last season I used some to fill maki rolls and also to flavor a dish of Tomago Kake Gohan, a Japanese breakfast rice bowl that ironically uses hot rice to cook a raw egg. Looks like a theme here eh? So I thought why not use this brined & smoky fish as the bacon component of carbonara. 

                                                                            

    So I ended up using bacon as well because we all know bacon can't hurt anything right. I made the dish as I usually do, just added the trout. It was excellent, not fishy in any way. Trout can sometimes be described as stronger tasting but I think the smoke tends to soften up any fishiness. I certainly wouldn't hesitate doing this recipe again and although I only used half the trout I think I might like to try it in something else...Risotto maybe?

                                                                                

Smoked Rainbow Trout Carbonara

Serves 2

3-4 Eggs- lightly scrambled 

4 Tablespoons Butter

1/2 Cup grated Parmesan Cheese

1/2 Cup Chopped Italian Parsley

3-4 oz. smoked trout or other smoked fish of choice- flaked

2-3 strips Bacon(if not using trout, 4-6 strips)-diced

1/2 lb. Pasta(I generally use Fettuccini or Linguine)

Salt & freshly ground Black Pepper to taste

1/2 cup of reserved pasta water if needed for sauce consistency

Bring eggs, butter, cheese & fish to room temp. a couple of hours before preparing dish.

When ready:

Bring 3-4 quarts of water seasoned with enough salt to taste like the ocean to boil.

Cook bacon in sauté pan over medium heat till cooked but not too crisp. Remove from heat & add butter to pan to melt.

When water is boiling add pasta and cook till al dente. After setting some of the water aside, drain pasta and put it back into the pot & immediately add the rest of ingredients stirring well to incorporate. If sauce seems too thick, add some of the reserved water to a creamy consistency.

Enjoy with a nice crusty loaf of bread. 

Brine for fish

1/4 cup kosher or sea salt

1/3 cup brown sugar(white is fine)

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup white vermouth(optional)

Mix all ingredients in 1 quart of water until salt and sugar is dissolved.

Submerge your fish in brine making sure it is covered and weighing it down with a plate or bowl if necessary.

Time in brine is determined by size of fish and how much seasoning you want, as little as 30 minutes to over night usually is sufficient.

When finished brining and before you smoke/cook, make sure to give it a good rinse under cold water to remove brine.  

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I Love Finding Stuff To Eat

If I thought about when I started foraging I'd have to go back to my adolescence, spending summers on the Rhode Island beaches. My first memories of collecting small snails in the tidal pools, steaming them in sea water as we barbequed on the beach. They wouldn't fill you up but just the feeling I got at that young age of how cool it was to harvest something and eat it. Another favorite was digging clams with my mother. We kids got our share but mom was the expert. She had a system of walking along the beach in a few inches of water, she'd spot the two tell-tale siphon holes, start digging with a twisting motion with her toes and when she made contact with the clam she'd finish digging & retrieving it with her hand. Now these weren't the smaller little necks or what they referred to as Quahogs in RI but the larger sea clams that would fill your hand. A bit tough to steam and eat, these babies were turned into stuffed clams(Stuffies) or our favorite, Manhattan Clam Chowder. To this day I have not been able to replicate this soup, a combination I'm sure of the type of clam and my mother's recipe.

Five decades later and being able to gather and prepare food that I have either hunted, fished, foraged or grown is still immensely satisfying. Mushroom hunting is probably the foraged edible I'm most interested in. It began about 25 years ago and didn't get off to a good start. I remember my first outing in a forest where I regularly hunt for whitetail deer, pheasant & turkey. I'd noticed a lot of mushroom activity so I headed into the woods with knife, paper shopping bag & my Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. I came home with dozens of specimens of fungi only to be so overwhelmed with identifying any of them. It took Chanterelles(Cantharellus Cibarius) growing in my own yard to be the first mushrooms that I would identify and ultimately consume. They actually pop up at least once if not more often annually and I long ago gave up any hope of having a manicured lawn so these golden beauties are pesticide free & quite tasty. As for any other varieties, my interest waned for quite a few years.             

Jump ahead to 2017, it was August and we were having a very wet & mild summer. I noticed one morning driving to work that the forest floor was littered with mushrooms of assorted varieties and the way the light was, they just seemed to glow. On the way home I stopped to have a look. On this exploratory venture I decided to take different approach than the one so many years ago. I restricted myself to only 1 or 2 samples to identify so as not to get overwhelmed. I would just try and pin down one at a time, take the time and do it right and be 100% sure of what I had, after all ID-ing fungi was nice but ultimately I was after table fare. I did manage to collect & identify a few varieties, some not edible and some edible but not choice. A week or so later I was in different area & I just about walked over a patch of Black Trumpet Mushrooms(Craterellus Fallax),  a very difficult type to pick out on the ground because of their size and how they blend in. I was fairly confident of my discovery so I collected a small amount. I went through my normal procedure of identification and confirmed my find. I cooked a small amount butter & a little salt. They tasted wonderful with an earthy & woodsy flavor. 

                                                                                                      

In the next few years I would ID a few more choice edibles, Chicken of the Woods(Laetiporus Sulfureus), Honey Mushroom(Armillaria Mellea) and Hen of the Woods(Grifola Frondosa). I don't think we've had as good conditions as 2017 but that's foraging, always something different going on, places I've made good finds in the past, mushrooms haven't returned since. I will however always be on the lookout for edibles when I'm out in the field. On one of my recent excursions I made a good haul of some Honey's and proceeded to cook them over an open fire, packaged and froze them for some future dishes.

There are so many varieties of edible foraged food out there and I am very happy with finding and correctly identifying one at a time and add it to my growing list.

 

                                                  

                                                                                                   

 

The lowly sunfish

Fishing is definitely a pastime I enjoy for sure. For the most part, I am a catch & release fisherman. Meaning, I let the fish that I catch go back to swimming in the lake or wherever I caught it from. I think that started when I got into largemouth bass fishing, and most people that fish for bass are into catch & release. I do however, love to cook and eat fish. And fish that I caught myself are prized much higher than something purchased. It's like growing your own veggies or hunting game, I get a much greater sense of satisfaction receiving these products from their natural place of origin and with my own hands than buying them in Styrofoam trays & sealed in plastic. This is pretty much how I roll when it comes to fresh-water fishing. When I'm on the beach or bay, that's another story. Then I'm working for the table. Weather for flounder, blues, weakfish or striped bass, maybe my favorite fish to eat, not too much releasing of legal sizer's going on there. Today though, I'm writing about the other end of the scaled spectrum, the sunfish. You know, the fish that you caught as a kid using dough balls and a bobber at the local farm pond or a vacation lake. They go by many different names, pumpkin seeds, bream, red ear and the larger ones that I fish for, the bluegill. You're thinking, who cares about sunfish. There isn't a "Sunfish Anglers Sportsman's Society" or a "Sunfish Unlimited". Probably the best explanation is that they are predictably catchable. That is, when you feel like catching fish just about any time, they will not fail you. And the best thing is that it is so simple, just a light fishing rod & reel fixed with a hook, float of some kind and some bait. Earthworm, cricket, grub, meal worm and bread balls, they all work. There's just something so relaxing about watching your bobber floating still one moment, then erratically being yanked under the surface by a hungry fish. Wait a minute, I take that back, there's not much time to relax when the fishing is hot and furious. For the most part, it's non-stop fish catching madness. Good madness of course.

I started off stating that as a rule I released my fresh-water fish. There are however some exceptions. Occasionally, I am in the mood for a fish fry, and one of my favorites is crappie. Similar to sunfish but can get bigger and at certain times school up and you can catch many. The little breaded fillets can make for quite a memorable eating experience. Then you have trout, wild(native) and hatchery-raised. The latter is what we get in this neck of the woods. They are farmed by the state to release into the local waters just to catch and take home. They're tasty for sure but my favorite has got to be the yellow perch. A pretty little fish with black & yellow stripes and a green hues. The meat sweet, firm and flaky and can be caught easily on live bait or artificial lures.

While at the lake recently, hooking bluegills left & right, I thought to myself, I have never eaten a sunfish. I know many people do, I just never have. Some of the ones I was pulling in were huge, pan-filling size. So it got me thinking, I just might want to see how these guys rate. So I got a nice fire going in the pit, since I had some Korean beef marinating for cooking over coals, I thought I would just stick a cast-iron fry pan over those same coals to fry some fillets.

In the end, I have to say not my favorite fish to eat. That being said, I've had worse. Yes it was very bony, and allot of work for little return but, the meat tasted pretty good. Flaky, sweet & moist and I had a blast catching & cooking them on the open fire and it was a meal obtained just steps from my front door. Good stuff!

The Sounds of Spring

If you ask ten people what they think spring sounds like, I'm sure you'd get 10 different answers. Maybe the return of the backyard songbirds, the hum of hummingbirds whizzing by, the buzz of bumblebees as they bob and weave through the azaleas. For me, I'd have to go back 8 years and my first turkey season to really recollect what for me is the greatest sound of spring to be heard. In the pre-dawn hours of a late April morning in 2004 I walked down a dirt road in the Jersey pines and was immediately welcomed by the sound of a whippoorwill. How did I know it was a whippoorwill when I have never in my 44 years on this earth have heard one? I'll thank my dad for that, because at the age of 10, he taught me how to cup my hands just the right way and place my lips on my properly angled thumbs and blow. If you had the proper cadence, and opened your cupped hands to allow the right amount of air out, you could create the sound of the whippoorwill, something at the time I hadn't a clue to what it was, but my father sure made it sound cool. It took me all day, walking to & from school to get it, but when I got it, that was a good day. Now I was hearing that same sound, the sound I made with my hands, only it was  a real sound made by a real wildlife creature in the dark woods. Then, as I approached the predetermined area that I would hunt, another sound, something I also had never heard before but this one shook me to the core. This noise rattled the whole woods. The spring call of the tom turkey, the elusive gobble brought chills to my spine, but good chills indeed. I new that I was close to his roost and success was not far away.
Unfortunately for me, success was three more seasons away because I would only see two jakes(young male birds) all spring &  it wouldn't be until my third year hunting that I would harvest my first gobbler.
2011 is my eighth season hunting turkeys and although I also hunt in the autumn for deer & small game, I always look forward impatiently for the first signs of spring to arrive. I'm sure it has to do with being cooped up all winter and this past one was definitely cold and snow-filled.
It certainly was worth the wait though. On my second day out in the field, I was rewarded with my third tom turkey. I had hours of work ahead of me but, I could already taste the turkey breast cutlets that would grace tonight's dinner table.
There were many plans ahead for this bird.
The biggest tasks were going to be a batch
of sausage, half being smoked and then a wild-
turkey stock which for some reason I have not
done before with other game birds.
Tonight however, will be simple, just a light
coating of panko crumbs and sauteed in a mixture
of olive oil & butter. So simple and plain in fact,
the Mrs. pretty much inhaled what I served her,
and shes not that keen on eating game meat.

Next up...
Pick up some hog casings and dust off the meat grinder. Time to try another hand at game sausage.